Study Habits
by ThrowawayName
Summary: Raven has her algebra mid-term coming up. A source of stress and evil that needs to be combated with a new strategy.


Ever since starting college, it seemed that Raven was generally more stressed out than she was before. It was to be expected, having to not only get used to a completely different style of education than what she was used to on Azarath, but also having to deal with her peers. They were far from being bad people, and she did make a few friends in her classes, but a lot of them could be very overbearing at times. The worst were definitely the for dates. Flattering, yes, but she was already in a relationship. Most of them were apologetic about their mistake, but she would occasionally get the odd jerk that refused to accept that she was perfectly happy with Beast Boy.

Her choice of major had been archaeology. Beast Boy would joke about dating the next Indiana Jones, but she knew that the field was something she could bring a lot to, with her knowledge of the mystic arts, as well as her interest in ancient civilizations. It was definitely a subject she had a passion for, and each class she took for it had been wonderful. Unfortunately, she was stuck with her general education classes this semester. She could handle English, arts classes, foreign language, and even speech, but college algebra was definitely her arch-enemy right now. It wasn't that she was bad at it, on the contrary, she was scoring a solid B in the class. It was just the one subject that she wasn't receiving an A in, and each assignment that she was handed back with a less than perfect score felt wrong. Like she should easily be doing better, but no matter how hard she tried so far, she just couldn't make it over that hurdle.

It had taken a conversation with Beast Boy to figure out what she was doing wrong. He had also been attending college, majoring in Zoology. One thing that had become apparent was how much more he had to study for classes than she did. Most of his general education courses didn't come anywhere near as easily as they had for her, but he was managing his classes as well as he could.

Beast Boy could tell that she was more upset with her inability to ace the class than she had let on. All the Titans could really, but he was generally the one to ask her about it since they started their relationship, though he did sometimes bring the others in when he didn't have any good advice for her problem. This time though, he had it pretty easy.

"So Rae, why does a B have you so bummed out?" He had asked, noticing that she had been staring at her latest quiz for an abnormally long time.

"Why do you think I'm upset?"

"Well, for one you got defensive when I asked," he joked, and switched back to being serious when he noticed her lack of amusement, "but also because you keep staring at that quiz like I do when I do badly on an assignment."

"It's nothing, I got a good grade that anybody would be happy with, and that's all that matters." She answered in monotone. A clear sign that she was trying to suppress what she really felt behind logic.

"So why aren't you happy with it?"

She sighed, "I really can't hide anything from you anymore, can I?" He shook his head 'no'. "Fine, it may seem silly, but this is the one class where I feel like I have to struggle in. I know this B is a good grade, and I shouldn't worry, but it feels like I'm not living up to my standards for myself, I can't seem to meet them with my one class, and I don't understand why. You understand?"

He nodded, "I think I do. You feel like you should be better than this, but you're not, right?"

"Yes, that is what I just said."

"Easy, Rae, let's just see if we can figure this out. I assume you take good notes, pay attention, and do all the homework and reading, right?" She nodded. "Well, then how do you study and prepare for tests?"

"I don't."

"Huh?"

"I don't study. I've never really needed to before. Is it that important?"

He was flabbergasted by that revelation. Beast Boy had always pictured Raven as the perfect student, but here she was freely admitting to the fact that she never studied in her life before. Collecting himself, he finally answered her, "Oh Rae, I get what's going on. You never learned to study."

"And how do I do that?"

"Well, you review your notes, look over homework and quizzes to see what mistakes you've made, and you know how I sometimes ask you to go over history stuff with me and, uh, 'reward' me when I do good?"

She blushed, "Yes, I think I'm pretty familiar with that."

"You could ask for help with math when something's confusing, or just to have a practice test! Although, you should probably ask someone else for help with math, and uh, not do the whole 'reward' thing for you."

She smirked at that, "Oh don't worry, I'll take zoology next semester for my science credit, and we can study together daily."

Now it was Beast Boy's turn to blush. "Looking forward to it Rae, now, how about I help you get started on how to study?"

That had been a week ago, and since then, she had started to get a handle on how to actually study and prepare for tests. It would have been nice to have even more time to prepare for her algebra mid-term, but she supposed that she'd take what she could get. When it came time to take the actual mid-term though, she did notice that she felt a lot more confident in each of her answers, like she really knew and understood the material better than ever. She handed her exam in to the professor after double-checking it, and headed back to the tower.

"So, how did it go?" He asked when he noticed her teleport into their room.

"Well, I think studying did help out in the end." She smiled at him.

"That's great, think you aced it?"

"Maybe I did, I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

"That's what I like to hear, now how about we celebrate? Your choice!"

"Hmm, there is this play this weekend I've been interested in seeing, I suppose we could get dinner and go see that together."

He smiled at her, "Of course Rae, now get over here. You've been stressing out over this mid-term all week, and I think you could get use a massage."


End file.
